Ghosts
by Girl in a White Dress
Summary: Four stories set before, during and after.  [Jack, Irina, Sydney]
1. ghosts

Title: Ghosts  
Word count: 500  
Notes: Written for the rewind challenge at alias500: vacation. Set pre-series.

* * *

The KGB has generously granted her one month after her release from Kashmir, and it is here at her family's dacha outside Moscow that Irina seeks refuge. Here, away from the city and Lubyanka and the suspicious glances of her colleagues that she can lick her wounds in private and slowly begin to heal.

It is winter and the garden is blanketed with snow. Inside, Irina wraps herself in a duvet, sipping tea as she stares out the window. She remembers her father chasing her and her sisters around the garden, throwing snowballs at them.

(Sydney was on her back in the snow, laughing as she moved her arms and legs to make an angel. Her mittens were bright red, like blood on ice.)

At night, Irina lies in bed and does not sleep. She knows she is physically safe here, knows that Kashmir is now something of the past – but she is afraid of her dreams.

There is a fat orange cat that lives at the dacha. Irina names him Vronsky and lets him sleep on her pillow. She buries her face in his fur, his belly rumbling softly beneath her cheek.

(Sydney had been asking for a cat; Irina hopes Jack got one for her. A cat will help her broken heart.)

At the beginning of the second week her mother shows up. Larisa Nikolaevna takes one look at her daughter and begins cursing the KGB, America, even her husband for letting Irina leave Russia in the first place. Irina, wrapped in the blanket at the window, stares outside and says nothing.

Katya arrives next, a few days later. She does not comment on how pale her sister is, how sharply her cheekbones stick out, how lifeless her eyes are. Instead, she pours vodka and tells stories of all the people Irina used to know. They are strangers to her now; the only people that matter are a world away and forbidden to her.

One night Irina says, "You would have liked them." When pressed, she refuses to say more.

It will be months before allows herself to speak of her other daughter.

Elena appears in the last week, carrying a briefcase of yellowed manuscripts. Larisa and Katya have returned to Moscow; Irina and Elena sit at the kitchen table, the papers spread out before them.

"You are special," Elena says. "That's why you've survived all of this. You are the Chosen One."

Vronsky winds himself around Irina's ankles. She thinks of fate, of a life that is lost to her now. (Jack, Sydney, Nadhezdha.)

Elena looks almost feline in the lamplights; she smiles when Irina says, "Tell me more."

On her last day, Irina packs her suitcase and searches for Vronsky, but he is gone.

Returning to Moscow with Elena, she leaves her ghosts at the dacha.

(In her mind she holds three images: a man looking at her with love, a pig-tailed little girl, and a dark-haired infant. They will stay locked away for twenty years.)


	2. lost

Title: Lost  
Word count: 500  
Notes: Written for the rewind challenge at alias500: one night. Companion piece to _Ghosts_. Set during Sydney's missing two years.

* * *

Irina is sprawled out on her stomach on the living room carpet, nose to nose with a large grey tabby. The cat's tail thumps once, twice, three times on the floor, and then the cat flops onto its side, its green eyes still fixed on Irina.

It's a somewhat surreal image, Jack thinks when he arrives home from work to find his wife petting the cat. It is a scene that belongs to a life long in the past and when Irina looks up and smiles at him, he thinks _Laura_.

"You didn't tell me you had kittens," she says accusingly. On cue, one of them darts out from under the couch to pounce on its mother's tail.

"They're not mine." Jack loosens his tie and sits down. "She's not really my cat either."

"She has a collar." Irina scratches the tabby's chin. "And you feed her. Does she have a name?"

Jack sighs; he might as well humour her. "Anna."

Irina sits up then, giving him one of her full smiles. It's been a long time since he could take pleasure in seeing her look so delighted. "I once had a cat called Vronsky."

"Does this story have a happy ending?"

Irina leans against his legs and rubs Anna's fur. The other kitten, an orange tom, has also come out and is sitting at Irina's feet, staring up at her. Irina scratches his head, then chuckles when he jumps onto her lap and nuzzles her. "Oh! Hello!"

In moments like these, Jack reflects, it is easy to pretend that nothing ever went wrong, that she is not a wanted woman, that their daughter is not lost to them, that they are who they always were. In moments like these, Jack sees how they could have been, and he wishes they were.

Perhaps that is why he says, "Do you want him?"

Her smile is all the answer he needs.

The kitten seems to understand; he makes a small chirping noise and his purr is loud enough for Jack to hear. Irina lifts the cat to her face, rubbing her cheek against his fur.

"Hello, _koshka_." Irina uses the same voice she would to speak to a child.

Jack smiles.

Irina looks at him again; her expression changes and she puts the kitten on the floor and slowly crawls up to straddle Jack. "_Spasibo_," she says, so close that her lips brush his.

"You're welcome."

They sit like that for a moment. She looks at him as if she's searching for something but he's not sure what that is. He wonders if he should be concerned that he's no longer worried about what she sees in him. He doesn't think he could hide from her again if he tried.

He slides his hands through her hair as he kisses her. She tastes of wine and cigarettes; her kiss is as familiar as it is foreign, but it is _Irina_ he whispers, not _Laura_, and he knows that he is lost.


	3. memento mori

Title: Memento Mori  
Word count: 500  
Notes: Written for the rewind challenge at alias500: aftermath. Companion piece to _Ghosts_ and _Lost_. Set between seasons 3 and 4.

* * *

Sydney cuts the engine and looks through the windshield at the house. She has been driving all morning but now that she is finally here she isn't sure what to do next.

Last night she buried her mother. She looked at the body of the woman who gave birth to her, a neat hole in the centre of her forehead, and in that moment Sydney hated her father as she never had before.

This is the second time she has buried her mother. It is no easier than the first.

And she thinks: _my father is dead to me too_.

Blinking back tears, she gets out the car and walks up to the house. Her father gave her directions and told her this was her mother's dacha. She had hung up without acknowledging him, but yet she has come here anyway.

There is an orange cat sleeping on the topmost step. He looks up when Sydney gets closer, then rolls over onto his back and stretches lazily. Sydney bends to scratch his belly for a moment; the presence of the cat has cheered her up – but only slightly.

She picks the lock and enters the dacha. The cat follows her inside, meowing loudly as though calling someone.

Sydney imagines that she can feel her mother's presence in the house; she wanders through slowly, trying to commit everything to memory. She feels as if she owes it to her mother to remember her – because despite everything she was still her mother.

She sees a photo frame lying face down on a shelf. All the other photos in the house are of Sydney; this one is of Jack.

Sydney sinks onto the nearest chair, her knuckles turning white as she clutches the frame too tightly.

_Daddy, how could you?_ she thinks. _She loved you_.

The cat jumps onto Sydney's lap, butting his head against the frame. Sydney absently rubs his fur as tears fall unchecked down her cheeks.

The last time she saw her mother, Irina said, "I love you," and jumped off a building. Sydney wishes things had happened differently, wishes she had had the chance and the courage to say, "I love you, too."

The cat is purring now and for the first time Sydney notices his collar. She fingers the tag; Cyrillic letters spell out the name Vronsky. On the back of the tag is a date two and a half years in the past. Sydney has no idea what it means; probably this cat did not even belong to her mother.

She remembers the expression on her father's face when he told her he and Irina had been working together to find her. She had known there was more to that story but had been too lost in her own pain to ask.

She knows she will never ask now, and it is perhaps better that way. She does not want to know the details about how her father murdered her mother.

Some things are better left unsaid.


	4. amor vincit omnia

Title: Amor Vincit Omnia  
Word count: 500  
Notes: Written for the rewind challenge at alias500: cold. Companion piece to _Ghosts_, _Lost _and _Memento Mori_. Jack and Irina, after Sevogda.

* * *

It is dusk when he steals into the dacha; the sun hangs low on the horizon, the sky already pink. He has not dared come here in almost two years, not since that awful night when he killed a woman he believed his wife. 

He finds Irina asleep in the master bedroom – and he cannot help but remember the last time he was in this large bed with her. The cat curled up against Irina's belly senses Jack's presence in the room and wakes; Irina sleeps on.

He studies her: she is still too thin, but less pale than when they pulled her out of that hole in the ground. As always, her beauty is breathtaking. In sleep her face is softer, losing some of the harshness she wears when she is awake.

He steps further into the room. A floorboard creaks and Irina wakes. The cat jumps off the bed as Irina sits up and aims a gun in Jack's direction. For a moment, neither speaks, then Irina slowly lowers the gun.

"Hi," Jack says.

Irina scowls at him, then flops back down and pulls up the covers. Jack smiles; she is always cranky when she is tired.

She mumbles something then and he has to move closer to hear her.

"What?"

"You chased the cat away."

"Ah." He considers that. "Sorry."

She reaches for his hand and tugs him onto the bed next to her. "I'm cold," she says, an explanation for why she has been in bed all day.

Jack kicks his shoes off then crawls under the covers as well. He wraps his arms around her, pulling her close against him.

"Better?" he asks.

"Mmm."

They lie in silence for a while. Jack thinks of all he had planned to say – _I'm sorry, I love you, forgive me_ – but he cannot bring himself to speak. If he closes his eyes he can pretend they are in the past and he never pulled that trigger.

"How's Nadia?" Irina finally asks.

Jack's grip on her tightens; he wishes he had better news. "She's in hospital. The doctors are trying to bring her out of the coma."

Irina falls silent again. Jack feels wetness on his neck and realizes it's from Irina's tears. He rubs her back, out of practice at giving comfort.

She lifts her face to his, and then they're kissing. Jack feels as if he's drowning – he had thought she was lost to him, that they would never do this again.

"I'm glad you're here," she says later. They're lying skin-to-skin and he feels her pulse flutter beneath his lips as he kisses the column of her throat. "I've missed you."

He props himself up on an elbow and looks at her. She is no longer the woman he married all those years ago. Neither is she the woman he knew two years ago.

But he is not who he once was either, and despite the impossible, they can still look at each other with love.


End file.
